Australians in mass no-show for evacuation flight from Lebanon

Beirut: As Amal Elriche prepares to board an evacuation flight from Lebanon to Australia, tears begin streaming down her mother-in-law’s face. The older woman is glad her loved ones are escaping Israel’s war against Hezbollah, which has killed more than 1000 people in Lebanon since late September, but wonders when she will see her grandchildren again.

Elriche grew up in Guildford, in western Sydney, but has been raising her three young children in northern Lebanon. Their town of Minieh, 96 kilometres north of Beirut, has not been hit by Israeli airstrikes since the fighting escalated, but warplanes regularly travel overhead, raising locals’ anxiety. The unpredictability of the conflict scares her; she fears it could spread north to a town like Minieh without any notice.

Amal Elriche (centre) and her children Alma, Ibtissam and Mahmoud Baker, prepare to leave Beirut airport on an evacuation flight.Credit: Kate Geraghty

“It’s been scary,” Elriche, 37, says. “You feel like your life is on pause, you feel helpless.” She doesn’t expect to return to live in Lebanon any time soon, even though her family’s life was firmly planted here. She thinks Australia will provide a better, safer future for her children, aged between five and 10. Her Lebanese husband, who does not have a passport, is staying behind for now at least.

Aching hearts and scattered families. Life plans torn to bits and discarded with a few days’ notice. This is the reality of war for those lucky enough to survive the fighting.

Once you step into the departures terminal at Beirut airport, there’s no way to miss the hub set up to welcome Australians such as Elriche. A giant cardboard cutout of a kangaroo and koala, as well as a string of Australian flags, have been erected to avoid any confusion.

Andrew Barnes, Australia’s ambassador to Lebanon, has ditched his embassy office and set up at the airport alongside fluoro-vest wearing officials from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT), and the departments of Defence and Home Affairs. It’s a different scenario to the last all-out war between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006, when the Israeli military bombed Beirut airport and flights were grounded. This forced the Australian Defence Force to evacuate almost 7000 people by boat from Lebanese ports to Cyprus.

The cardboard kangaroo greeting Australians arriving at Beirut airport to board evacuation flights.Credit: Kate Geraghty

In the past week, more than 2000 Australians, permanent residents and immediate family members have taken up the offer of a taxpayer-funded charter flight from Beirut to Australia via Cyprus. Free international flights out of a war zone may sound appealing, but supply is easily exceeding demand. Many of those who have registered their interest in a seat have not shown up to make the journey. On Wednesday, the day we visit the airport, just 364 of the 660 available seats were filled. The shortfall is causing increasing frustration, verging on exasperation, among Australian officials, who have been urging Australians not to travel to Lebanon for the past year.

“These flights can’t go on indefinitely,” Barnes warns.

On Friday, Foreign Minister Penny Wong announced there were no more flights scheduled beyond October 13.

“We’re taking the same approach on this as we took to people who had to flee in the earlier part of the conflict after the horrific events of October 7 [2023],” Wong said in Adelaide. “We have a flight scheduled for Sunday, that’s October 13. There are no further flights scheduled beyond that. So I’d say to Australians … flights are not going to be scheduled indefinitely, and are subject to operational security constraints. You should leave now if you wish to leave.”

Despite the year-old warning not to travel to Lebanon, many Australians continued to come here, including for weddings, funerals and family holidays.

“Some people haven’t heard the government messages; some think they have heard it all before,” Barnes says.

The federal government estimates there are about 15,000 Australians in the country, but that figure fluctuates depending on the time of year, and many believe the true number is far higher.

Unlike in 2006, Australian officials now expect the airport to remain open and free from attack, although the situation could change suddenly. The national Lebanese carrier, Middle East Airlines, continues to fly out of Beirut to destinations across the region and Europe, albeit at inflated prices and reduced availability.

Australian Lisa Sfeir at her home in Hadath El Jebbeh. She will not leave Lebanon despite the war. Credit: Kate Geraghty

Israel’s strikes have battered Hezbollah strongholds in southern Lebanon and the southern suburbs of Beirut, causing more than a million people to flee their homes. Many Lebanese-Australians, however, live in the country’s north, an area largely untouched by the current conflict.

Among those staying is Sydney-born Lisa Sfeir, who has no intention of leaving her home in Hadath El Jebbeh, a high-altitude resort town in the north. Boasting stunning views of the steep cliffs of the Kadisha Valley, it is near the Forest of the Cedars of God, home to the last remaining cedar trees that feature on the Lebanese flag.

Sfeir, 50, spent the first half of her life living in Sydney before moving to Lebanon at 25. She still speaks with a thick Australian accent, renews her Australian passport each time its expiry date approaches and serves an Aussie Burger – complete with egg and beetroot – at the restaurant she runs. Also on the menu: fried ice-cream, in a homage to the dessert often served at Chinese restaurants in Australia. But Lebanon is now her home, and it’s where she’ll stay. She hasn’t been back to Australia since the last war in 2006 and hasn’t put her name on DFAT’s registry of Australians in Lebanon.

Carol Khalife in her clothing boutique in Bsharri. She and her husband will stay in Lebanon unless their area comes under Israeli attack. Credit: Kate Geraghty

“I couldn’t care less, I don’t want to go,” she shrugs, as she drags on a cigarette in her living room. As for the Israel-Hezbollah war, she says: “If it wasn’t for the TV, I wouldn’t know it was going on.”

A short drive down the road, Carol Khalife is selling women’s clothes imported from Australia at the town of Bsharri. She and Sfeir went to the same Catholic girls’ high school in Bankstown, in Sydney’s western suburbs, but have a different attitude to Australia – and to the war.

While Sfeir stays resolutely put in Lebanon, Khalife shuttles back and forth between the two countries and has returned to Australia 14 times in the past 18 years. As for the war, she says: “I feel anxious. It’s so unpredictable.”

Lebanon, she says, has gone backwards dramatically since she arrived in 2010, with a dire economy, endemic corruption and vacant presidency since 2022. Yet she has no intention of leaving permanently unless the fighting arrives in the north. She finds the fresh fruit and vegetables in Australia taste bland and thinks the tap water smells like eggs. More importantly, she and her husband don’t want to abandon their homes and jobs and become dependent on their children in Australia.

Khalife says about 1000 people fleeing the fighting in southern Lebanon have sought refuge in her town, making them “strangers in their own country”.

“My heart goes out to all the innocent,” she says of the war. After scrolling incessantly on her phone, she had to disconnect from social media as she was becoming overwhelmed by the devastating images from Gaza. “We don’t want that to happen in Lebanon. We just want peace.”

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